Collection Search | Corning Museum of Glass

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The Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) (r) is a structured vocabulary for generic concepts related to art and architecture. It was developed by The Getty Research Institute to help research institutions become consistent in the terminology they use.Learn More

Object Name:

Sculpture

Title:

Contacts III

Maker(s):

Libensky, Stanislav (Czech, 1921-2002), Artist

Brychtova, Jaroslava (Czech, 1924-2020), Artist

Place Made:

Czechoslovakia, Zelezny Brod

Accession Number:

88.3.27

Dimensions:

(a) Sculptural Part H: 121.2 cm, W: 96 cm, D: 26.2 cm; (b) Sculptural Part H: 109 cm

Location:

On Display

Date:

1984-1987

Credit Line:

Gift in part of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser

Web Description:

The internationally acclaimed artists Libenský and Brychtová pioneered, explored, developed, and defined glass as a medium for contemporary sculpture. The career in glass of this husband-and-wife team spanned more than 45 years. Their art explores ideas about light, color, space, and transparency. In Contacts, two prisms intersect to form a cube. The combination of two geometric shapes to create a third form is characteristic of Libenský and Brychtová’s work. A much larger version of Contacts was commissioned for a wall in the Narodní metro station in Prague in 1983.

More Info

Department:

Postwar and Contemporary

Provenance:

Greenberg, Daniel, Source

1988-05-16

Steinhauser, Susan, Source

1988-05-16

Heller Gallery, Source

1988-05-16

Color:

Technique:

Material:

Description

Primary Description:

Transparent topaz non-lead glass; mold-melted, ground, polished, assembled; steel structure. Solid, narrow, vertical cast sections that are mirror images of each other and stand upright--partly overlapping with approximately 3/8" in between; both irregular shapes consist of a squared, upper, outside corner of uniform thickness the extends downward diagonally then sharply thickens to form a low, wide, diagonal, pyramidal interior edge that tapers in at the base of the section; when pyramidal sections are overlapped the top and sides of the sculpture form two broad, flat corners flanking a central cube that extends downward and visually splits apart leaving a space between the two sections at the base; overall interior veiling and seed bubbles; sections rest on a solid metal rhomboid base; inscribed in block letters near interior base edge of one section: "S. LIBENSKý J. BRYCHTOVÁ 1984-87".